OK, so I was looking online for WIll Vinton films (the great claymation animator) and remembered a disturbing scene in the film "the Adventures of Mark Twain." Now, as a kid, I had seen this on the Disney Channel, it was a fun if rather bizarre adventure that culminated in Twain basically dying and traveling off with Haley's Comet.
However, what I did not realize was that this was an edited version of the film. In fact an entire sequence, entitled "The Mysterious Stranger" had been removed for the Disney Channel. And i discovered why only a few months ago when it was on a premium movie channel.
The Mysterious Stranger (as it appears on film) has the Twain characters Huck Finn, Tom Ssawyer and Becky Thatcher meet Satan. I'm not kidding. Satan shows them a world of small clay people that he creates, they frolick and play, but then he basically gets mad and destroys them in a horrible way. And all the while he renounces god, the goodness of Mankind, and basically says that nothing really exists and nothing matters. Thta's pretty bleak shit for anyone, especially for a movie that is geared (generally) towards families.
At first I thought this was Vinton taking a bizarre trip and trying to make a statement.
As it turns out the Mysterious Stranger is a real story by Mark Twain. And it tells the tail of a young Satan (not the real Satan, but a nephew of) and how he grows up and comes to despise humanity and to inflict evil on society.
Its one of the more disturbing things I've seen in a film, simply because it is placed so crudely into a film that is geared towards kids. And nothing else in the film has any real relation to it. It is simply a side-story that creeps the hell out of you, stops the movie dead in its tracks. From that point on, the movie is an uncertain and weird place. And you're so startled by this bleak and angry scene that nothing else in the movie can really make up for it.
Just to give you a sample of Twain's own words from this book:
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier."
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
(thanks go to absolute astronomy)
However, what I did not realize was that this was an edited version of the film. In fact an entire sequence, entitled "The Mysterious Stranger" had been removed for the Disney Channel. And i discovered why only a few months ago when it was on a premium movie channel.
The Mysterious Stranger (as it appears on film) has the Twain characters Huck Finn, Tom Ssawyer and Becky Thatcher meet Satan. I'm not kidding. Satan shows them a world of small clay people that he creates, they frolick and play, but then he basically gets mad and destroys them in a horrible way. And all the while he renounces god, the goodness of Mankind, and basically says that nothing really exists and nothing matters. Thta's pretty bleak shit for anyone, especially for a movie that is geared (generally) towards families.
At first I thought this was Vinton taking a bizarre trip and trying to make a statement.
As it turns out the Mysterious Stranger is a real story by Mark Twain. And it tells the tail of a young Satan (not the real Satan, but a nephew of) and how he grows up and comes to despise humanity and to inflict evil on society.
Its one of the more disturbing things I've seen in a film, simply because it is placed so crudely into a film that is geared towards kids. And nothing else in the film has any real relation to it. It is simply a side-story that creeps the hell out of you, stops the movie dead in its tracks. From that point on, the movie is an uncertain and weird place. And you're so startled by this bleak and angry scene that nothing else in the movie can really make up for it.
Just to give you a sample of Twain's own words from this book:
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier."
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
(thanks go to absolute astronomy)